Smoke from the second annual New York City BBQ Cookoff enveloped Historic Richmond
Town as pitmasters from across the country vied to become this year's
champion.The event is on the Kansas City Barbeque Society's International circuit. Winners from Richmond Town can advance to the next
level of the competition, all the way up the ladder to the 36th Annual World
Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest held in May in Memphis.

"We've doubled the amount of cooks and contestants from last year; we have
35 of them," said Executive Director of Richmond Town Ed Wiseman. "So
this is really the first real major large-scale community event after Sandy,
and it really shows that Staten Island is back. Staten Islanders are back and
they're hungry."

Cooks came in from upstate New York, New Jersey, the Boston area and other
locations, Wiseman said.

Sharing his smoking technique, he explained that the butts are between 15
and 20 pounds and can take as long as 10 hours to smoke "slow and
low" at a temperature of about 225 degrees after an initial blast at 300
degrees in the smoker.

Representatives from Operation BBQ Relief, a nonprofit organization that helps
areas affected by natural disasters, also were there offering samples
of their culinary creations to Islanders. The last time the group was here
was directly after Hurricane Sandy, when it fed about 15,000 people at the
Guyon Rescue Center in Oakwood.

"It's a barbecue-brethren group that just really loves helping give back
to communities," said Laura Valois of Richmond Town, who volunteers with
the group.

"All
these guys, what they saw on the news is nothing like (what they saw) when they
came down (to Staten Island)," she continued. "They were so
emotionally affected that they all decided to come back."

Other members of Operation BBQ Relief are currently in West Texas feeding first
responders and victims of the fertilizer plant explosion.

Of
course, everybody has their favorites in the competition.

Daniel
Convery, 10, of Bay Terrace came back to this year's event to try samples
from Three Men and a Baby Back, a barbecue team from Bergen County, N.J.
"We're eating in the barbecue cookoff," Convery said. "And I
like it. I just like succulent pulled pork. I came here for Three Men and a
Baby Back."